Trick or Treaters

There was a knock on the door of the TARDIS.
This was unexpected. More than unexpected. Practically unprecedented. Because the TARDIS was currently in flight.
The Doctor, frowning, operated the scanner. He didn’t expect it to show anything. And it didn’t, because there was nothing to show. The TARDIS was in the Time Vortex, and nothing – well, as near to nothing as made no difference – existed there.
He’d obviously imagined it.
The knock came again.
All right, so it was real. Nevertheless, it was impossible – or at the very least insanely dangerous – to open the TARDIS
doors while in flight. Even if some incredible being was out there, he couldn’t do anything about it.
Another knock – harder. More of a series of thumps, an angry tattoo.
The Doctor glanced again at the scanner. He prided himself on reacting calmly to any situation, but couldn’t prevent a slight start of alarm. A crowd of faces stared at him from the screen; the stuff of nightmares. Monstrous, fanged, warped, each one more grotesque than the last.
The knocking became even louder and then, with a crash, the doors were forced inwards. It shouldn’t – couldn’t – have happened. He braced himself behind the console, waiting to defend himself against whatever diabolic creatures had breached his sanctuary.

(…)

All four boys stuck out a hand. ‘Trick or treat!’ they demanded.
The Doctor boggled. Rarely at a loss for words, he just stared at them. After a few moments of incredulity, the best he could manage was an indignant, ‘No!’
‘Come on, mister,’ said one. ‘You’ve got to give us a treat, or we’ll play a trick on you.’
‘I am not giving anyone a treat!’ The Doctor’s outrage was rising. ‘Who are you, anyway?’
One of the boys shrugged. ‘We’re trick-or-treaters, ain’t we?’

(…)

And in unison, all four chanted again, ‘Trick or treat!’
‘You’ve broken into my TARDIS in the middle of the Time Vortex and have the audacity to ask me for a treat? No! No treat!’
‘Not even a jelly baby?’ asked the boy with curly dark hair.
‘Not even a jelly baby! Nothing!’
The boy with fair straight hair shook his head in disappointment. ‘I’m sorry. We hoped you’d cooperate, but if not, well, we’ve got no alternative.’ He turned to the other three. ‘I’m afraid it’s going to have to be trick.’
Before the Doctor quite knew what was happening, each of his arms had been grabbed by two boys and he was being dragged towards the still-open TARDIS doors.
‘Let go! Going out there will kill me! I don’t know why it didn’t kill you!’
‘It didn’t kill us because it likes us,’ said the shortest boy. ‘Let’s just hope it likes you too.’
They were outside of the TARDIS now, although the doors remained open, a tantalising glimpse of sanctuary. The boys’ movements made no sense: a bouncing, soaring walk with nothing underfoot, both defying gravity and bound by it at the same time.
‘This has got to be a dream,’ the Doctor said.
The fair boy with curly hair pinched him. It hurt. ‘Not dreaming,’ the boy said. ‘Sorry. I’m afraid this is real.’ He paused, looking down at the Doctor’s arm. ‘Oh dear. Looks like it doesn’t like you after all.’
The Doctor followed the boy’s gaze. Where the boy had pinched him, the cloth of his multicoloured suit was crumpling away, the rot of a thousand years condensed into a few seconds. And below it, below the cloth …
The flesh of his arms was melting.
He put his hand to his face and felt nothing, then saw with horror that his fingers were dissolving in front of his – did he even still have eyes? He was surrounded by nothingness and didn’t know if he could still see and nothing was all there was, or if this was what it was like when there was nothing left of you – not the blindness that came of closing your eyelids but an emptiness that was both internal and external.
It seemed like he was both floating and spinning, even though it felt like there was nothing left of him to spin. Then, as he spun, his bones re-formed, began to be clothed in flesh again. Was it over? Was he reborn? No. As soon as the renewal was complete, his substance once more melted away.
Five times this happened: five times he became nothing then was re-created, until finally the terrible sequence ended and he was real and solid again. The boys and the TARDIS reappeared – or had they been there all along?
‘Have you changed your mind yet?’ asked the short boy, suddenly right in front of the Doctor. ‘Are you going to give us a treat? Or do you want another trick?’
‘You mean you’ll stop all this if I hand over a few gobstoppers?’
‘Not quite,’ said one of the taller boys. ‘We want a bit more than that.’
‘What? Like my TARDIS? Or my life?’
The boy with dark curly hair stamped his foot. ‘Oh, you’re an imbecile! We’ll have to play another trick.’
And suddenly the Doctor was back inside the TARDIS. Alone, except for the sorry-looking guy, which was still lying in its wooden-crate-and-rope cart.
‘I don’t suppose you want to tell me what’s going on?’ he asked it, but its mask just stared back mockingly.
The Doctor sighed. He had no illusions about the ordeal being over. It was just a question of waiting to see what was going to happen to him next.
Everything went dark, and a shout rang out: ‘Catch us if you can!’
The Doctor didn’t hesitate for a second. If they hoped to find him off guard, they would fail. He launched himself towards the voice with his arms outstretched and found himself holding something cold and smooth. He felt it. A hatstand? There certainly hadn’t been a hatstand there earlier …
A giggle from the other side of the room. He changed course, dived towards it. Again he grabbed, and this time found himself embracing the cold, hard bones of a skeleton. He leaped backwards and heard it clatter to the floor.
The nightmarish game continued. The Doctor pursued the laughing, mocking boys here, there and everywhere, occasionally catching one but more often finding himself grasping some strange object, many of which he couldn’t identify and didn’t particularly want to.
Finally, he had managed to catch all four of the boys, and to his relief the world became light again. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ve played your ridiculous game. Perhaps you would now care to tell me exactly what you’re doing here.’
‘We’ve told you,’ said one. ‘We’re here for trick or treat. You’ve seen some of our tricks. Now, are you ready to give us our treat?’
‘I don’t think I’m likely to want to give you whatever it is you’re after,’ said the Doctor.
‘He needs more convincing,’ said the boy with straight blond hair.
‘Hold on, at least tell me exactly what is it you wa–’ the Doctor began, but something strange was happening. Something was welling up inside his throat, up into his mouth, and as he tried to speak it fell from his mouth. With horror, he saw that it was a toad. Once more he attempted to speak, but another lump was forming in his throat.
‘There’s a fairy tale,’ said the tall boy with curly dark hair. ‘The good daughter is generous to a fairy, and as a reward, whenever she speaks, diamonds and flowers fall from her mouth. But the bad daughter doesn’t give the fairy what she asks for, and instead of jewels she produces toads and snakes. At the moment you’re the bad doctor. Why not try being the good doctor instead?’
‘Why don’t you … at least tell me … what it is … you want!’ the Doctor forced out, through a cluster of toads.
The shortest boy turned on him, and for a moment the Doctor was convinced he saw absolute despair in his eyes. ‘Oh, why can’t you see? It’s because we can’t!’
The other three hurriedly shushed him. ‘Be careful!’ the
Doctor heard one of them hiss. ‘If we don’t play by the rules, we’re done for!’
But that glimpse of despair had turned things upside-down for the Doctor. Suddenly these children were no longer villains out to taunt and torture him. They were … victims? Perhaps. So what did they want from him? What so many people had wanted from him across the centuries: help. But in what way? They couldn’t speak freely, it seemed, but perhaps there were clues. The fairy-tale toads from his mouth – could it be that they weren’t just a punishment for not giving them what they wanted, but a clue to the nature of what they wanted? Something to do with words that needed to be spoken?
And the five times he’d disappeared – a representation of five deaths? No, five deaths and five rebirths; in effect, five regenerations. He had regenerated five times. It was something to do with that, with his six lives …
And the strange game of blind man’s buff? Maybe he had to find something hidden, something unexpected, something out of place – like a guy at Hallowe’en …
‘Ask me the question,’ he demanded of the boys. ‘Ask me now.’
They all held out their hands and in unison called, ‘Trick or treat?’
‘Treat,’ said the Doctor. ‘I think I know what you want from me. You want me to ask you the right questions. So my treat is this. Who are you?’ Then he pointed at the guy. ‘And who is he?’
The four boys broke out in relieved grins. ‘Well, we’re you of course,’ said the tall boy with curly dark hair, the one who’d asked about jelly babies. ‘And so is he.’
The shortest boy pulled the mask off the guy. There lay a dummy of an elderly man with long white hair.
‘Now, my last question: why Hallowe’en?’
‘Because it’s still Hallowe’en, silly,’ said the boy with straight blond hair, munching on a stick of celery. ‘It’s been Hallowe’en forever. It was the only way we could get to you, let you know, by becoming part of the Hallowe’en party ourselves. Yourselves. It’s been you who’s been trying to let you know this all along. You’re still at the Hallowe’en party.’

***

Trick or Treat, Tales of Terror